To F.A.I.L.

When I was a junior in high school, I attended a leadership conference and was hopeful to use the sage advice as a guide for my future endeavors. One of the speakers spoke about failure and how the word fail could be an acronym that was defined as: Finding Another Important Lesson. I never took this message to heart for the next few years, until I entered the spring semester of my 2nd year at Fullerton College. I took up Biochemistry because ever since the 1st grade, my eyes were glued to CSI, Criminal Minds, and every season of Forensic Files. I was fascinated on how the Crime Scene Investigators used complex tools to obtain data and reveal justice through science. Even though my core classes were Chemistry based; I was required to take a Cell and Developmental Biology lab. I have never taken a Biology lab course but I was not too stressed because I had General Chemistry lab experience on my belt. Jesse Martin was my Biology lab instructor and from the first day, I was forever doomed.

“Turn to page 5 from your lab manual and from here up to page 20 please use the microscope to perform the given technique. These plastic tube instruments are the micropipettes and using the manual’s instructions, transfer 5 various volumes of water and dispense them in the test tubes. If you have any questions, please let me know. This time in class and office hours are the only ways you can reach me or need one on one practice since other classes are held in this lab room as well. Remember, lab practicums are worth 40% of your lab grade. ” I took a huge gulp and stared blankly at the compound microscope, unsure on where to begin due to the unfortunate fact that I have never used a microscope or micropipette in my previous Chemistry labs. I glanced over at other peers with their higher levels of expertise already magnifying their samples and pipet liquids in their test tubes; then you have me figuring out how to turn on the microscope for the first 5 minutes and adjusting the microscope’s knobs for a good 10 minutes. At that point, asking Jesse was more of an inconvenience than a benefit.