Final

Today I waltzed out of my molecular biology final after barely half an hour - the first to leave.

This is notable because (aside from it being my first final exam in more than two years) I'm rarely the first person to hand in an exam. It's partly because my father's drilled into my head since primary school that one should always check one's answers, but also because...if you're the first person to walk out and you know others are struggling with it...you feel bad.

It's a form of survivor's guilt, a feeling that one's ability is undeserved and is morally culpable. My sis FlowerMoonFish, being both smarter and nicer than me, feels it more strongly. (Last year when she was taking A-Levels she said she studied extra so that the girls who actually needed to study wouldn't feel bad when they saw that she was mugging too.) It's an emotion that the jerky kids who like to suck up to the prof and wear their brains on their sleeves don't have to deal with.

But in the final analysis [hur hur hur], someone has to walk out of that room first. It's a nice day outside, might as well be me.

---

Last night I was explaining to Steve about in situ synthesis of oligos for DNA microarrays (see here, it's really cool):

"And who came up with that? A biologist or an engineer?"
"An engineer, but it was a biologist who came up with the application. I'm sure an engineer didn't wake up one morning and say 'I'm going to invent a way to synthesize oligos on a slide for fun.'"
"I don't think you can be a pure biologist or a pure engineer any more. You have to merge."
"Oh yeah? Let's merge."

^_^

EDIT: good GRIEF I'm degenerating into one of those girls who talk about their boyfriends all the time. The other night on the phone my dad asked me why I "have to be in a relationship all the time". Emotionally needy I guess =D