3 March 2004

As part of today's experiment, the students heated up some iodine crystals, causing it to sublime (go from solid to gas) into the beaker. An evaporating dish full of ice placed on top of the beaker causes iodine crystals to deposit onto the bottom of the dish, making it look like the dish has whiskers. The color of iodine vapor is one of the prettiest colors in the chem lab.

Today I stayed home with Matt. He had stayed up late, very late, doing a history paper and wasn't getting up. I told him he could sleep in for a while but that I would stay home and work on trigonometry all day with him to help him prepare for a test tomorrow. We worked from about 9-12, then went to Oscars and worked there during lunch, then worked a bit at the beach. I drove him back to school in time for him to pick up Scott and bring him home. We continued working on trig well into the evening after I finished teaching my chem lab. I think both of us are quite good at it now. It was amazing how much I had forgotten, and how easy it was to pick up again. I feel like I understand it better now than I did in high school and college, where I was a math major. Working with Matt was wonderful. It's so infrequent that he ever asks for help in schoolwork, and he picked it up so quickly and thoroughly. It's been a very good day.

DWL