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Note for the uninitiated:
PCR a.k.a Polymerase Chain Reaction is one of the most significant discoveries in modern Biology.

Lyrics of "The PCR Song"

There was a time when to amplify DNA,
You had to grow tons and tons of tiny cells.

Then along came a guy named Dr. Kary Mullis,
Said you can amplify in vitro just as well.

Just mix your template with a buffer and some primers,
Nucleotides and polymerases, too.

Denaturing, annealing, and extending.
Well it’s amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do.

PCR, when you need to detect mutations.
PCR, when you need to recombine.
PCR, when you need to find out who the daddy is.
PCR, when you need to solve a crime.

Day!

Gems, I tell you. All my students. (Not Cadbury's Gems, that being the case...I would've liked them better, or not, or I'm unconformed on the issue.) Today's topic of discussion in my class was about hereditary metabolic disorders that can be identified and studied using cell cultures. After rambling for an hour about how certain cells have mutated genes, how that leads to non-expression of enzymes vital for cell metabolism, therefore rendering the cell incapable of functioning properly, causing the disorder.
For every class I take, I have a different pet phrase. Today it happened to be "cells lack" so-and-so enzymes, therefore they suffer from so-and-so disorder.
[Cells lacking the enzyme X, cause a metabolic disorder Y. Any further questions on the matter, email me, I'll be more than glad to be of help! :P !]
So, I am sitting in the lab, and a girl from my TY class comes and says, "Ma'am, we are lacking in journal papers, can you please give them to us?!" (Biotenglish Syndrome?! Well we will have to see about that.) I SO wanted to burst out laughing then-and-there. But according to the stupid Teachers' Code (and I don't know it really exists, or if other teachers abide by it) I cannot, rather should not be laughing at anything that my students say or ask, however ridiculous it might be. Don't get me wrong here, I am perfectly OK with them asking me outrageously stupid technical questions. I am ready to answer them all, mind you, with a very open mind. But saying foolish things as is the case, I have to try really hard to contain my laughter inside ...So, keeping with the code, I made a face, moved my tongue around in my mouth as if my molars had food stuck in them and wrote it down in my to-do diary for cheering me up whenever I need some cheering. Desperate measures for those desperately hopeless times. [I know what you are thinking! Don't get all judgemental on me, OK!?! ]



More, I supervised my first test. FY students appearing for Biochemistry test, 20 marks Internal Exam. I cannot begin expressing how kicked I was by the whole darned thing!
I was generally very excited. Almost felt juvenile. Like I was a school kid playing teacher-teacher. Going to the class, distributing papers, being strict (I enjoyed that the BEST!), collecting answer-sheets, you get the picture!
All through the test, while my students were busy writing answers, I was smiling to myself! (Giggling inwardly) I haven't felt this child-ish in loooonng time. It feels good.
[Mental Note to Self #1: Do juvenile things more often :D]



On the Department notice board, my name is prefixed by Prof. All you non-teacher people, you have NO idea how cool it sounds/feels! It made my day!
Ah! Such are the little pleasures of teaching in India. (Seriously, where else in the world will you find a 6 month old teacher being called that?!)



Today was honestly, a very nice day, ignoring the fact that I *almost* hurt all my body parts in ONE day. Bumped my head on the cupboard door, I think they'll have to replace the door. Burnt 2 fingers, thumb and the middle finger, just the memory of which makes me want to hold it out to noone in particular. I got a sore toe, thanks to my iPod. Yes, that is possible, anything is possible. AND to top it all my back still hurts as hell from my workout going horribly wrong!
[Mental Note #2: When you have a good day, leave it at that!]


Anyhoo...
:)
:P
:D
LOL
I'm happy!

I've been perplexed and living in a constant state of anxiety for the whole of this month, what with the grad applications (yes, I'm still not done with them; 5 gone, 5 more to go), severe sleep deprivation, a bout of cold-flu-cough and the feeling of being utterly useless which has come about by the flash realization that teaching business = monkey business. And as if that was not enough, now my tiny brain has to cope with these bloody scientists who go and publish "Chimps Exhibit Superior Memory, Outshining Humans"!!!

What followed reading that article was funnier. I went and switched on TV. And what it was playing was this:



To hell with the population explosion, all you intelligent people out there, PROCREATE!!

Why I Can't Be Funny and More.

(My randomness at its best(if I may say so myself)!)...

Why I can't be funny and why is it always that my sense of humor needs to do a HOO-HA!?!

#1: Because I laugh at bad jokes.
(Eg.:Have you heard this one?
"Why is 6 afraid of 7?"
"Because 7 8 9!!"
-HAHAHAHAHA! (Haanji, read as one of my silent fits of laughter!))

#2: My waking hours are spent in the "analysis mode". It's hard to crack jokes in that mode, man!
(Remark for self: I really need to turn it off sometimes.)

#3: I fall into the category of nerds, and nerds, according to me have a weird, whacky sense of humor which the non-nerds fail to understand. (No offence meant! (to anyone))

...Er, I have my funny moments (sometimes)...I am just not mentally equipped to deal with funny most of the time. Simply put, I am not comically inclined.
Don't get me wrong here, I like a good laugh. I enjoy a good laugh! ... It's just that it's so hard to come by! :(

Anyhoo musing on...the stuff that *I* think makes me *think* *I* am funny:

#1: High dose of Caffeine and/or Sugar and pulling off an all-nighter!
#2: My definition of moderate amounts of alcohol (which is not a lot if you ask me. It can't really be quantified; it's the amount that leaves me... *happy*, blissfully happy :) )
#3: Spending endless hours with my sister.
#4: And something I only recently found out, spending some more endless hours (yes, I have too much time on my hands! Ah! don't give me that look! Gah! not everyone is as lucky! ok?! :P ) with the FA gang! (Haye! I miss you guys!)
#5: When the mean streak in me comes alive.

Hmmn, I never thought I could be 5 point funny!

Philosophy of the D in my PhD.

I plan to apply for a PhD soon (read,in a couple of months), and I took up teaching so that I don't sit at home listlessly, uselessly, and basically to avoid making my life pointless. You get the idea, right?!
(the pittance of a pay-check is responsible for such negativity towards teaching!)

I'm between my M Sc and my PhD,
I am in the transition state, let's call it 'D'
'D' is the high-energy state where all the excess energies are being resourced towards attaining a stable state PhD.
*nerd alert blaring at top volume!*

Yes, the point of all the rambling is something I read written on the black-board when I entered my classroom.

"Experience is something you get when you are looking for something else."
--Anonymous

How perfectly it defined my transition state for me!

*sigh* *sigh* *sigh*

My Teaching 'Experience'...so far...

As time passed by, I realized that sitting at home made me progressively dumber, stupider (I know it's not a word!), it was driving me insane everyday. My mind had become so empty; I saw myself becoming the DEVIL!! Sitting at home reading, listening to music all day, watching all the films that I always wanted to watch, etc., it was all fun at first, but the realization that things in my life stayed where they were annoyed me immensely. Exciting things had ceased to happen in my life...the ennui seemed to have no end. That was when I decided, I had to set in motion all my blasted brain-cells and do something constructive with my time...I had to start working part-time somewhere, to keep myself occupied at any rate with something 'technical'...I was done with the non-technicalities of life! The artistic urges wanted to go to sleep while the practical, more scientific ones took over and took charge of my life! [spicing it up for me while they were at it! :)]

I started teaching. Something I always dreamed of doing!...but in my head, I always thought I would teach the grad-students (I've always considered them to be more committed to learning, and education, and have a wider knowledge base to work upon, etc.). NOW, here I was teaching first and second year under-grads! I mean, I was one of them so recently! I knew so well their never-ending need to be nasty to the new TA's! How I dreaded doing it!

Fortunately my first class with the first year B Sc kids was fabulous! *phew* I liked my students and they liked me! (atleast that is what I would sincerely like to believe). It was hard for me to accept how much I was enjoying teaching a bunch eighteen-nineteen year olds!...and thinking about it, for the first time, I realized what I was enjoying, I was loving the process of making better grad-students out of them! I was thrilled when they looked up to me for answers, I was elated when they asked me logical questions. It was fun leading them to answer their own questions, by deducing from the knowledge they already had, from their experiences and observations in day-to-day matters and then building upon it to finally teach them what I intended to do in the first place!

"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards."
--Anatole France (1844 - 1924), The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

So far, according to me, it has been an enriching and educating experience for me (definitely) and my kids (hopefully). To sum it all up...

"When one teaches, two learn."
--Robert Half.

GOD knows how much I love teaching! God bless my kids!



P.S.: The, er, inspiration for typing this post was the Robert Half quote on my Gmail. "Fucking coincidence" was what 'S' called it when he randomly emailed me same the quote just as I began punching in my thoughts in this space, I loosely refer to as 'my blog'! :D