I phone my family everyday to let them know how I’m doing and the recurring theme is that I’m always writing. They must be wondering how much can one person, even a grad student, write? Truth is that I only have 5-6 pages towards my thesis and I’ve been writing for three weeks. Let that be a warning to anybody who is considering grad school. But those are some damn good 5-6 pages. And I rewrote every single paragraph twice (at least).
But it’s not just being overzealous that makes me slow. There’s also all these preparations before the actual writing process that take all my time. I made a comic out of them:
But it’s not just being overzealous that makes me slow. There’s also all these preparations before the actual writing process that take all my time. I made a comic out of them:
OK, now that you have stopped rolling with laughter and regain composure I tell you that today it was different; I had a pretty productive morning. And now I’m taking a break. I’m thinking of cleaning. Writing a thesis also makes you develop a new appreciation for housework.
Oh, Matt is looking for substitutes to chemical cleaners. I have to say that I adopt a very monolithic approach to cleaning: I like bleach. Instead, Matt believes in baking soda and vinegar solutions. By the way, I looked up the Material Safety Data Sheet for baking soda and it’s being investigated as a mutagen. And vinegar is dilute acetic acid. Ha! All those undergraduate years smelling solvents in the Chemistry building are really paying off now when I get into discussions about household cleaners. Yeah, you can tell your life is exciting when you post about bleach.
But I’m willing to entertain the idea of a non-chlorinated cleansing product. So send me your ideas. Make sure though that you don’t make a claim for “natural” products a being less toxic. The origin of a product says nothing about its toxicity. You will sound like a moron if you try to argue the opposite. Or maybe you are in my faculty, in which case you can’t help to throw blanket statements like that one. Oh well.
Oh, Matt is looking for substitutes to chemical cleaners. I have to say that I adopt a very monolithic approach to cleaning: I like bleach. Instead, Matt believes in baking soda and vinegar solutions. By the way, I looked up the Material Safety Data Sheet for baking soda and it’s being investigated as a mutagen. And vinegar is dilute acetic acid. Ha! All those undergraduate years smelling solvents in the Chemistry building are really paying off now when I get into discussions about household cleaners. Yeah, you can tell your life is exciting when you post about bleach.
But I’m willing to entertain the idea of a non-chlorinated cleansing product. So send me your ideas. Make sure though that you don’t make a claim for “natural” products a being less toxic. The origin of a product says nothing about its toxicity. You will sound like a moron if you try to argue the opposite. Or maybe you are in my faculty, in which case you can’t help to throw blanket statements like that one. Oh well.
3 comments:
Madame M, you know the way straight to my heart! Baking soda and vinegar, here I come.
hmm, i was thinking about a masters but it sounds hard - i think i would have the same problem and never be able to finish my paper.
i like the cartoon! it really shows how people can come up with endless ways to procrastinate.
but i'm not sure about your claim about natural products and toxicity. obviously natural things can be very toxic (jellyfish stings, LSD, etc.) but as a general rule aren't the natural things that have cleaning properties less toxic and corrosive than chemical products. i would rather ingest baking soda and vinegar and lemon juice than ammonia and chlorine. don't forget i am terrible at chemistry, i couldn't get past grade 9 and even there i only got 65%.
not to say that i don't use the chemical stuff (obviously). today i got blue ink stain all over my shirt when my pen busted at work. i took it to the "green drycleaners" that i usually use but the guy was like "that's too crazy for us, we can't fix it, you have to take it to the 'regular' (chemical) guys down the street" so i did.
Did I not warn you about the consequences of arguing the opposite? Don't you ever listen?
OK, here's what: natural products break-down more easily than human-made ones. Even then, if you have a highly concentrated natural product it can exceed the capacity of the ecosystem to absorb it. That's all you got going for your argument at the moment.
Toxicity depends on the product itself, you have given examples of natural poisons (by the way, is LSD natural occuring? I didn't know that).
Knock yourself out ingesting baking soda and vinegar - and you will knock yourself out - but we're talking about cleaning the toilet here, not having lunch.
The other thing, do natural products do the job?
But I take your suggestion is to use baking soda, vinegar and lemon juice. We'll see how it goes.
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