40 Ways to Know If You've Been Traumatized by AP
Biology (so far . . .)
1. Every time you look at
a plant you wonder if it is a dicot or monocot, and then you wonder if it's a C3
or C4.
2. Anytime a teacher asks
a question you automatically answer "ATP!"
3. You don't laugh at the
words sperm and uterus anymore.
4. You never use
fertilizer because it would increase the nitrogen in the soil, therefore
increasing the algae growth and carbon dioxide content in the ponds nearby,
killing all other living things.
5. Whenever you eat the
cheese crackers shaped like goldfish, you wonder if they use their gills to
excrete sodium ions because they're so salty.
6. On long trips when
your little brother or sister has to go bathroom every 5 minutes, you think,
"Those 2 million nephrons are hard at work."
7. When you spot bird
droppings (guano) on your mother's car you immediately warn her of the effects
of concentrated uric acid on car paint.
8. One day you find a bug
bite on your leg; you then think, "There goes those antihistamines
again" and start scratching.
9. Whenever you stretch
the elastic band of your underwear, you think of an unsaturated phospholipid
membrane.
10. Unzipping anything
makes you think of the first process of DNA replication.
11. You tell all your
freshmen friends how you had to walk through five miles of snow, waist-deep,
uphill both ways to collect a bucket of pond water. And then think, "Poor
students", but out loud you say, "C'mon, I'll show you. Whee!"
12. Watching a field of
grass on a sunny day, makes you shout out loud, "Man, those Calvin cycles
must be spinning fast and furiously."
13. Every night before
going to bed you thank God for Rubisco.
14. After a long run in
P.E., your tired legs make you wonder how much lactic acid has built up.
15. When you look at a
colony of lichen or moss you search for their covered wagons.
16. Every time you look
at a kitchen blender a tear comes to your eye for all the bacteria that were
interrupted.
17. Whenever someone
farts in class, someone has to shout, "Methanogens!"
18. Every now and then
you have cravings for primordial soup with crackers.
19. You and your friends
periodically discuss the similarities between Siamese twins and a chromosomal
tetrad.
20. You stay away from
X-rays, microwaves, and slowly burnt meat because you greatly fear chromosomal
mutations.
21. If you are a girl and
look at your father and your brother(s), you gladly decide that you will never
be weird because it seems to be sex-linked.
22. If you are a boy and
you know a girl is PMSing, you stay away because you know her hormones levels
are low.
23. You accuse all of
your skinny friends of having hyperactive thyroid glands and use their buggy
eyes as evidence.
24. When you go to the
tide pools you sadly shake your head at the sponges because they're an
evolutionary dead end.
25. You gross out all
your friends every time they eat apples by announcing they are eating ovaries.
26. Two words strike fear
into your heart - Krebs cycle.
27. The next time you eat
Aunt Jemima's maple syrup you think of the great journey through the phloem it
took from source to sink.
28. You laugh at the
folly of the sailing crew who tried to rid themselves of sea stars by cutting
them into different pieces.
29. Every time you hear
Darwin's name in connection to evolution you foam at the mouth, screaming,
"NO! The degradation of society! The raping of original thought! It was
Wallace! It was Wallace!"
30. You and your friends
frequently have heated arguments that turn into fistfights over whether it was
punctuated equilibrium or gradualism.
31. Frequently, you use
post-it notes to cover up nude pictures of men and women in the biology book.
32. You use the electric
can opener just to see if your dog will salivate.
33. When you are bored
you try to figure out what lucky one out of five of your friends (if you have
that many) are infected with tapeworms.
34. While sitting on the
toilet, you entertain yourself with the story of the long journey your food
undertook to get to porcelain heaven.
35. A "C" grade
on your report card doesn't seem so bad anymore (although your parents would beg
to differ).
36. Your parents give up
all hope for your Harvard education and years of medical school.
37. You explain to all
your friends your irritability is due to REM deficiency.
38. Nobody will ever go
to prom with you because of the permanent imprint of the biology book on your
face and hunchback posture from the 40-lb. load you call your backpack where
half of the weight is the Bio book.
39. Every time you watch
the X-Files you begin to side more with Scully, using your scientific skepticism
and your desire for more facts.
40. The two letters, A
& P, when used together, make you go into epileptic seizures.