Lessons in the lab

It was humid.

Like an underground parking lot full of cars on a rainy day kind of humid.

That was what you get when you put more than 100 sweaty students in a poorly ventilated space. One side of the lab was lined with big glass windows that were left unopened. Nobody bothered to switch on the ventilation fans either. It didn't help that we had to put on the compulsory white lab coat which was akin to a winter jacket on that hot afternoon.

Despite the heat, almost everybody was working diligently; bending over the microscopes, trying to make out the specimens underneath and comparing notes. I was surprised to find myself eagerly following in their suit. Mind you, I had expected it to be a tedious bore but instead it was quite interesting.

The lab session was for parasitology. Over 90 specimens to identify and their characteristics remembered. Specimen no.32, the Ancylostoma duodenale had a pair of ventral plates, each with two large menacing looking teeth. It looked like the big worm in the subway tunnel that Will Smith encountered in Men In Black. Specimens no.21 & 22, the Ascaris lumbricoides reminded me of overcooked spaghetti.

I even had the pleasure of meeting Cyclops, the hunky member of X-Men, somehow a bit deformed and grotesque looking under the microscope. This particular cyclops was actually a marine copepod crustacean, like the character Plankton in SpongeBob SquarePants. Like its namesake, the single-eyed giant of the Greek myth, it too possesses only one eye.

The lab session for microbiology was just as amusing. It was like a masquerade. A fungus pretending to be a serpent-haired Greek deity was there. Aspergillus was awesome as Medusa. And I thought I saw a celebrity chef/pirate there too. I tried to take a picture as proof, but only managed to get one of his eyebrows. It was proof enough for me, though the others only saw it as a picture of Trichophyton mentagrophytes.

Instead of memorizing plain boring bacteria, fungi, helminthes and all those things, I was memorizing famous bacteria, fungi, helminthes and celebrities. Thankfully, I got through the practical examination in one piece. One piece, get it? Haha...

The theoretical examination, now that's another story. Like Aslan said, "Things never happen the same way twice". And what's more, the examination should have taken place weeks ago. Each time the day drew near, the examination was postponed. Up until now, it has already been postponed thrice. At this rate, I'll end up forgetting all the stuff that I've learnt and left only with cartoons in my head.