Ester Greenwood devised a plan to get out of taking chemistry. She took a Shakespeare class instead. However, she did attend all the lectures. Her professor was convinced that she really loved chemistry but had to give it up for her major course.
This is what Ester thought of the periodic table. ".......I'd seen a big chart of ninety-odd elements hung up in the chemistry lab, all the perfectly good words like gold and silver and cobalt and aluminum were shortened to ugly abbreviations with different decimal numbers after them. If I had to strain my brain with any more of that stuff I would go mad. I would fail outright."
What Ester was really worried about was failure. All of us fear failure. Chemistry was too big of a risk to her. She may not get an A. At this point in her college career she had gotten all A's. Actually, she stated in the the book that she had "fifteen years of all A's". Ester had never faced "failure" or at least her definition of failure. She was very attached to the grades she earned in a class. In other words she defined herself as a straight A student and she could not handle being anything other than a straight A student. This small town girl in Connecticut had no idea what real failure was. She had a myopic view of the word and what success actually is.
It is interesting that she was afraid she would "go mad". That is what she actually did. She went mad. Mental institution, shock therapy mad. It had nothing to do with chemistry.
If you would like to see a really cool interactive periodic table you can go to: www.webelements.com. and also www.ptable.com
PhD. Mom
No comments:
Post a Comment