Of Angler Fish and Toothpickase

I meant to write this two days ago, but my computer has been misbehaving so it's just now going up.

As of 2nd/3rd bell on Thursday, I am one of the most efficient (perhaps the most efficient) toothpickase molecule, tied for champion of the First Spontaneous AP Biology Ice-Off, and an artist in a whole new medium.

After spending the past few weeks taking intense notes and trying to conduct and incredibly complex lab (which is so much more confusing when your group accidentally skips an entire page of the procedure), my AP Biology teacher decided we would just take about 20 minutes of relatively light-weight notes and then spend the rest of our double bell doing a fun lab modeling some of the factors that influence enzyme activity. The enzyme we used was toothpickase, the catalyst for the breakdown of toothpicks. The molecule had a curious structure comprised solely of the index finger and thumb from one hand. One person from each pair had to see how many toothpicks they could break using just their thumb and index finger from one hand under a variety of conditions. My left hand is officially the toothpickase master! I catalyzed the breakdown of 48 substrate molecules (toothpicks) in three minutes, setting the record for the three teams in my class.

One of the things we tested was the effect of reduced temperature on catalyst activity. To model this, the possessor of the toothpickase molecule from each pair of students had to soak their hand in ice water for two minutes (the lab originally said 10 minutes, but my teacher decided that we'd get a similar effect from two minutes and it wouldn't be potentially hazardous to our health). Everyone eventually tried the soaking anyway, and some withstood it better than others. I was one who endured the frigid waters without too much trouble (my distaste for shoes is good for something: I'm good at ignoring the cold). Upon noticing this, a classmate named Eddie commented that I was taking it more like a man than he was, and he challenged me to an ice-off. I'm not sure he was completely serious, but by the end of the bell there was a four-way tie between us two and another guy and girl. We went two by two and I was in the first round facing Peter when Mr. Breines commented that eventually he was going to have to put a stop to our little contest, because after a while it would make us pass out. At which point I started panicking. (I'm absolutely terrified to an unreasonable degree of passing out, although I've been getting over some of my paranoia. I no longer begin shaking in fear when someone mentions losing consciousness, I just get a bit fidgety and if the conversation continues a cold fear grips my stomach, but it's been a while since it made me panic.) He said that we would definitely notice dizziness long before we actually started to depart into unconsciousness, which reduced my fear considerably, but I think he began to lose faith in that statement because at 6 minutes and 18 seconds he told us to stop. He made Erin and Eddie stop at the same time too, so we had a four-way ice-off tie out. Breines said he might make an announcement about the four ice-off champions, but it hasn't happened yet.

After we were all done with the lab, we randomly decided to dip the leftover toothpicks into the mostly melted ice baths and use them as pens to draw beautiful artwork on the table. The table painted black so the water really showed up. First Joe drew a little fish. Then Eddie drew a big fish eating the little fish. Then the big fish got turned into an angler fish by Sara and me. When the little fish evaporated, the angler fish ate the little mermaid instead, thanks to Eddie. Somewhere along the line, Joe drew a circle under the angler fish which promptly got turned into a wheel attached to its stomach by Erin and I added spinners to the wheel. I created a manta ray and Eddie added a hunter that was drawn to hunt down the manta ray, but Erin didn't like the hunter, so he was blotted out with water. The entire scene was sprinkled with holy water thanks to Sara, which started a debate over whether the splashes were bubbles or blood. The little mermaid underwent several wardrobe changes, because we couldn’t agree on what she should wear. Joe drew a rainbow so I drew all the Lucky Charms while singing/chanting them. Sea urchins, starfish, rocks, sharks, alligators, stingrays and many other wondrous things were drawn. And of course, the most dedicated of us made sound effects while painting and gave a detailed play-by-play of the story we were creating. When the bell rang, one guy and I stayed to clean up since we didn’t have to go far to our next classes, and we couldn’t agree on whether the art was debris from a nuclear explosion or an oil spill spreading across the ocean when the ineffective paper towels smeared it everywhere. Five of the seven people in our class that day participated in the public art (including three of us with red hands that were still icy to the touch, so the other two claimed it was the ice going to our heads that caused us to start doodling, but that leaves both of them with absolutely no excuse). It was fun. The next day our teacher said he was glad no administrators came to visit that day because all five of us would probably have been taken to the office under the suspicion of drug abuse.