My Eighteenth Week as a Senior

This week was the last real week of studying in Semester 1 of Grade 12. I don’t know how I feel about that. It feels like Grade 12 just started and now it’s half over. The next 2 weeks will be Finals’ Weeks so there won’t be any more weekly recounts till after the Semester 2 starts.

Monday was tiring. In Sociology, we watched a documentary on Netflix, called 13th. It’s about the 13th amendment of the American Constitution and how the majority population of the US got around it by imprisoning a lot of the minority population leading to the era of mass incarceration. It’s a wonderful documentary directed by Ava DuVernay. It’s pretty saddening so I would recommend watching it alone if you count yourself as an emotional person.

In Biology, we studied how neural signalling works. This chapter reminded me of something a senior once told me her teacher had said: “ Science up until Grade 10 is bullsh*t. It’s Science for babies and the real Science is dumped on you in Grade 11 and 12.” That resonated with me so much this week, because we have always been taught that the nervous system sends messages as impulses. And we were led to believe that these impulses had something to do with the kind of electricity that powers a bulb; like white flashes of light travelled fast from our neurons to our brain and back. The part that’s true is the messages are impulses, but the only thing closely related to electricity here, is that the neuron uses something similar to a potential difference to send a message. It uses something called an action potential and a wave of depolarization to send a “message”. What happens is a neurotransmitter binds to a receptor on a dendrite that triggers an action pathway. This leads to Na+ and K+ moving in and out of the axon alternatingly and then finally triggering a response in the terminal end that releases neurotransmitters for the next neuron. I’ll explain the rest on Tuesday.

In Chemistry, we discussed Acid-Base Titration and Buffers. We looked at what affects the pH of an acid-base solution when there is a mix of a weak acid/base and strong base/acid and when there’s a strong acid mixing with a strong base. We looked at what indicators work best for indicating different pH like phenolphthalein is good to indicate a pH between 8.2-10.0 and bromothymol blue is good for pH 6.0-7.6. I’m not completely sure what buffers do but from what I understand they prevent the pH from changing too much, in turn preventing too much damage from happening. We did a question on Acid-Base Titration and then we had some free time to do a little work. In Math, we did the last bits of the rate of change unit, 6.7 and 8.8. It was just a lot of word problems about population and money.

Tuesday was like a continuation day. In Biology, we continued with the synapse. This is the space between 2 neurons or a neuron and a muscle/gland. The action potential or the wave of depolarization reaches the terminal end of the pre-synaptic neuron and triggers a release of Ca2+ that further triggers the release of neurotransmitters into the synapse. They reach the post-synaptic neuron and cause the whole process again. This is such a brief explanation compared to what we learnt in class, but you should really look it up online. I’ve heard there are a couple of great Crash Course videos on this topic.

In Sociology, we continued watching the movie 13th. It made me pretty mad at the American Justice System and how they blatantly resign to racism. No more comments on that. In Math, we had a quiz on the Rate of Change unit and then we did a little exam review in groups. In Chemistry, we did another question about Acid-Base Titrations and then we got to study for our final exam.

Wednesday was my favourite day this week. In Sociology, we discussed some methods of getting rid of Systemic Discrimination and I don’t remember much else because I was too busy shivering in my very cold classroom. In Biology, we discussed the workings of endocrine glands and hormones. It’s a side topic for this unit so the only detail we talked about was how insulin and glucagon work. It’s a negative feedback loop where insulin is released when the blood sugar level increases, making cells take in the glucose, and glucagon is released when the blood sugar level decreases, making the liver break down the stored glycogen to glucose. After that, I went to a short SAC meeting, the first one this year. We discussed some fun stuff for the first week of Semester 2. Then, I went to the library near the school to finish my work. I studied Sociology, Biology and Math so I can say I got a lot of work done. But I wasn’t very comfortable because of the hard metal stool I had to sit on. I was glad to sit in a comfy seat when I got on to the bus.

Thursday was not much. In Biology, we had a work period. Our teacher had told us the day before that she wanted to finish marking our Culminating Assignments and would give us a sheet to work on in class. I asked her for the sheet and finished it at the library. That way, I had nothing to do in class. So, I helped some of my classmates do their sheets. I did a little Biology revision as well to ease the pressure I would have the day before the exam. In Sociology, we watched an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show. It was about a pregnant transgender man. It’s a part of the case study in our final exam. I won’t reveal any other details because even I don’t know much about what happened. We watched the episode and our teacher warned us not to look up anything on the internet because then we would have to source it on the exam. In Math, we did more exam review. We had a supply in Chemistry, so I finished the work we were given and went home.

Friday was the LAST teaching/learning day of the semester and it was amazing. In Sociology, we got an article about the pregnant man that we had to link to the unit. It was from 2009, so the information was definitely outdated. I can’t wait for the exam to be over so I can look him up. In Biology, we did the best thing ever: we looked at sheep brains! It was the most fun thing I’ve done all semester. There was certainly a difference in how I behaved now compared to how I had behaved when we dissected the pig in Grade 11. I wanted to be the lead “surgeon” then because of the association with the word “surgeon” but I had never made a cut before, let alone cutting meat. So, my group laughed a lot at how I cut the pig open. That memory is a little tainted with embarrassment for me, so I don’t talk about it a lot. But this time I was so confident in holding the 2 hemispheres of the brain and touching all the grooves and ridges. It was the best thing ever and I can’t wait to hold a human brain.

In Chemistry, we did a cursed lab activity. It was an Acid-Base Titration that went wrong 3 times. The first time, we didn’t collect the data until it was too late to start doing it. The second time the stopcock came loose and all the NaOH flooded into the flask of Acid and onto my hands. The third time, everything went well until it was time to print our graph. The computer would not connect to the printer. And before we could email the file to ourselves, the bell rang. I decided not to go to Math because I wanted to finish my Chemistry Summative Lab Report that was due that day. I went to the library and finished it in 2 hours, which was way longer than I had expected. Then I went home and that was the end of the week.

It was a wonderful week and the best end to Semester 1 I could ask for. Just a reminder that I will not be posting anything for a couple of weeks besides my 5-monthiversary post. Gotta ace my exams! Till then, I hope you have a wonderful time and I can’t wait to come back and write again.