A L S O_ T O D A Y

Camille on Campus
By Camille Paglia
As academics allow our state education to languish, private parochial schools may lead to more cultural divides

T A B L E_ T A L K

Remember those first glorious days of dorms and registration? Offer advice to incoming college frosh in the Education area of Table Talk

___________________

Do you have an obsessive compulsive person in your life? Learn more at barnesandnoble.com
___________________

R E C E N T L Y

Is history dead?
By Sean McMeekin
Cultural studies scholars are ravaging the facts to suit their bassackward theories
(01/11/99)

Advice from a J-school drop-out
By Lea Aschkenas
When it comes to breaking into print, getting a graduate degree in journalism may be an exercise in exalted futility
(01/08/99)

Bartering brains for bread
By Mark Luce
Can the institutions of higher learning escape the long arms of their corporate sponsors?
(01/06/99)

Confessions of a stair mistress
By Elizabeth B. Krieger
While other students scarf chips, sling back beers and study, a growing tribe of compulsive exercisers pursues the perfect workout
(01/04/99)

Crisis in English
By Christopher Shea
When the Modern Language Association convenes this year, highbrow literary questions will take a back seat to a thorny debate about the ongoing dearth of jobs
(12/24/98)

BROWSE THE
IVORY TOWER
ARCHIVE

When your lab partner is an obsessive compulsive, not even the data is safe.

"Don't worry," an acquaintance who works in pharmaceuticals told me when I showed him the safety disclaimer form I had to sign for biochemistry lab. "I've been working with these chemicals for years, and look at me, I seem to be OK."

I looked at him. He did not seem to be OK. He had chronic colds, his skin appeared sunburned even in the dead of winter and recently his speech patterns had begun to resemble those of Forrest Gump. Nor was the safety form itself particularly reassuring. It described the substances we'd be using and their potential effects -- benzene (leukemia); ether (explosions); sulfuric acid (severe burns); carbon tetrachloride (liver/kidney damage and/or impotence). Then in fine print on the bottom it added a few details that I'll paraphrase: "If you're pregnant, don't take lab. Otherwise, sign the form. And if you croak, don't blame us. Welcome to Biochem 1L."

Biochemistry lab and I were not a good match. I'm just not good at mixing things together, heating them and producing a final product. As anyone who has tried my cooking and then spent the night in the bathroom will attest, my recipes never turn out the way the cookbooks promise, no matter how hard I try. Tracy, who sat at the next lab bench all semester, seemed to enjoy my incompetence. While my work space was always soiled with various liquids and occasional pieces of broken glassware, hers was immaculately arranged with test tubes matched by size and marked with neat white labels. And while she dressed in a starched white lab coat, double-gloved hands and professional lab goggles, my only concession to lab attire was a pair of ski goggles I once wore in Aspen, because they looked cooler. My rationale: It's hard to pipette when you're dressed like Dustin Hoffman in "Outbreak."

Needless to say, Tracy was not particularly pleased to discover that we would be partners on our final project: a four-week analysis that would count as an exam. And although I was glad to have such a meticulous partner, I wasn't looking forward to the experience either. Tracy irritated me: She shouted out answers, thanked the professor for answering her questions and casually mentioned that she'd outlined textbook chapters a week in advance. Her most annoying quality, however, was her constant need to moralize publicly: "Anyone who cheats is only cheating him- or herself." Then she'd look around the room to spot any potential cheaters, as if she were conducting her own personal witch hunt. As bad as lab had been, I knew the next four weeks would be a disaster.

Week 1

Tracy arrives with a laminated, color-coded, 10-page outline of the procedures. "Where's your outline?" she asks as I unpack my gear. Learning that I don't make outlines, that I just use the book, she lets out a huge sigh and launches into a lecture about never placing a textbook on the unsterile lab table. "You can share my outline this week," she says, "but from now on you'll have to bring your own." I watch while Tracy, humming an off-key Barry Manilow tune, washes and rewashes the test tubes, lines them up and labels them. I offer to go get the stock solutions, but Tracy stops me in my tracks. "Where's your lab coat? You can't work without a lab coat!" I protest that Banana Republic cotton is probably of a higher quality than lab cotton, but she will have none of it. "Proper laboratory etiquette," explains Miss Science Manners as I walk away, "requires proper laboratory attire."

When I pick up the tiny, numbered packets of white powder lined up at the front of the classroom, I recall a story about a guy who was stopped by a cop for driving erratically. When the police found some prescription medication that resembled cocaine in his back seat, the cops arrested him and kept him locked up for days before the lab verified his innocence. I fantasize about planting some chemicals in Tracy's car. I picture her in jail, telling her cellmate that it's proper etiquette to make up your bunk in the morning. I imagine her cellmate responding, "You want proper etiquette? I'll give you proper etiquette."

"This one's No. 13," she says matter-of-factly, pointing to the packet of powder. "It's bad luck. We'll never get an A with that number." I think she's kidding at first, but when she stares me down I realize she's dead serious. We're only 30 minutes into the first week of the project and I'm about to have a nervous breakdown. I decide that I must not let Tracy's compulsive behavior drive me mad. Vowing not to indulge her obsessions, I begin pouring buffer into the test tube.

"STOP!!" she screams, almost causing me to spill sodium acetate all over the place. The class stares, the professor comes running over.

"YOU'RE CONTAMINATING THE STOCK!" Tracy yells, looking to the professor for support. "You need to pipette the solution into a beaker, then transfer it into a test tube." The professor smiles at Tracy and compliments her on her knowledge of proper laboratory techniques, and everyone returns to work. "Go get us a packet that's not labeled 13," she says, making no effort to conceal her gloating smile. "And put some gloves on, while you're at it."

Reluctantly, I march back, exchange our packet for one labeled No. 17 and sign it out. But in the space where our names go, instead of writing "Tracy and Lori," I write, "Felix and Oscar."

N E X T_ P A G E .|. Week 2: Revolt of the laboratory slave