today is racial harmony day!!! haha, all dressed up like an indian early in the morning and it was very fun! although attracted some curious glances here and there, i didn't regret being rather out of place at school today by wearing ethnic costumes as the experience and fun can never be replaced! i'm suddenly reminded of my secondary school days when a lot of people are supportive of such activities.. unlike now at hwa chong, only a few souls were wearing and most of them are councillors(in e past or present) so its pretty sad in a sense. but i had my share of fun with my friends accompanying me, trying to be someone of another race for a day, wahahahaha. and we took quite a lot of pictures to let the memory of today be with us for years to come~ ;)
we did dissection of the sheep's kidney and mice today during biology practical, for those who are not comfortable with dissection, skip the upcoming 3 paragraphs as i'm going to go quite into details that may cause discomfort to some of you. for those taking biology, you may want to read and mentally prepare yourself for this type of stuff that you'll get to experience next year. firstly, its rather amusing to wear ethnic costumes to do dissection but we managed all right without dirtying the costumes~ haha. the sheep's kidney was ok, just like the sheep's heart that we did last week, smelt about the same and the feelings were about the same too, nothing much to say about it.
the horrible, saddening, disgusting, terrible and yet interesting, amazing, intriguing part is the dissection of the mice.. before starting on the dissection ourselves, just watching ms wong, our bio tutor doing it was already a chore. doing it ourselves? it was just horrible when you imagine how the mice would have been when it was still alive and kicking and what you feel is only a cold lump of tissues.. it was saddening when we knew of how it died from ms wong, they didn't die peacefully or quickly, they had to struggle painfully and frantically for one minute in a chloroform filled container, as it is the cheapest method, before death sets in on them.. the mice will scratch each other, knock against the walls of the container until they bleed, all because of their instinct for survival but they still cannot escape death no matter how badly they struggled.. the smell radiating out when the mice is dissected is just plain disgusting.. i am at a loss at how to describe it but trust me, it is terrible. we also learnt about how some pregnant mice may be used for dissection also, and in this case, you are not killing one but 10-15 lives at one go.. it is just so inhuman..
ms wong said since the live of the mice had been sacrificed for our sake, we must not let its death go to waste and have to learn as much as we can from its body through dissection. thus, i forced myself not to think about it as a mice, but as a specimen instead like the kidney and heart. i have to agree that it is indeed a very enriching experience to witness for yourself all the theory stuff in your notes, to discover the different systems, to learn from the body. i was amazed by the workings of animals, the respiratory system, blood circulatory system, excretory system, nervous system, reproductive system etc. i'm glad that i made full use of the mice's death by learning as much as i could from its body.
me, yunz, pork and wantana was much saddened as the fate of our mice, before its death was rather horrible.. as deduced from what we see of its corpse and upon discussion with ms wong.. it was so freaked out when inside the container that the faeces came out but it did not manage to excrete before dying, thus faeces was still stuck at its anus when we took it for dissection.. it was also scared to the point that its testes left the scrotum sac and went into its body to sit next to the bladder.. it was holding its bladder to the point of bursting even at death from the very bloated bladder we see.. it was not exactly well fed before dying as we can see many spaces in its intestines without any contents.. it was really very sad and our heart really went out to our mice.. thus we decided to give it a name and call it Ripple.. after finishing dissection, we placed all its contents back inside the body as nicely as possible and cover his skin back, then we wrapped him up very very neatly in newspaper and even securing it with tape before disposing of him into the bin.. we also got to see minute mice fetus in the amniotic cavity from the placenta.. it is eye-opening but saddening at the same time.. in the name of science, how many mice have been sacrificed? i dont dare to think further about it.. i'm just glad that this will be my 1st and last dissection ever..
anyway, after lessons today went lep room to practise for the semi-finals for ge yao this coming saturday.. i dont really have much hope in getting to the finals but i'm giving it a try so that i wont have any regrets upon leaving hwa chong as i'd always wanted to take part since watching it last year.. people do come and support ge yao ya? =)
2:54 PM
Yours Truly
A little girl
learning to live in a big big world
and trying not to give up things she believes in despite everything
