Organic Chemistry

So, most of the time I have something I should be doing, like now.  But I don’t really want to read 3 chapters of my finance textbook so I’m blogging instead.  I’m taking Organic Chemistry this year, which is fine.  It’s kind of hard (so I hear) but its implications are very far reaching.  For instance on my first day I learned that sucralose (the primary ingredient in Splenda) is simply chlorinated sucrose.  All they did was remove 3 O-H groups and plop on three chlorines and poof your body can’t do anything with it and it passes right through, therefore a zero calorie sweetener.  Pretty sweet right*!?  I also learned that chocolate is basically theobromine.  So theoretically they could do something similar to that as they did with sucrose and you’d have a zero calorie chocolate.  Today in lab we extracted caffeine from tea.  Ok, enough food examples.  Basically though organic chemistry is everywhere, it is the chemistry of life, and as a biologist I think that’s pretty cool.

I guess I should talk about the initial reason of this post.  I have tinker-toys! For nerds…  I have an organic chemistry model kit that basically allows me to build structures so I can see them in 3D and understand what’s drawn on the paper.  Yesterday I made benzene, cyclohexane, and butane, because I was confused as to what I was actually supposed to construct.

Here's what some structures look like

Here's what my face looks like when I'm thinking about it

And of course I have to wear my chemistry goggles when dealing with these highly dangerous compounds, I left out the lab coat as I figured my Science Club for Girls shirt confirmed with great authority just how much of a dork I am.

*I take full responsibility for that very stupid joke.